Proper Body Mechanics

Proper Body Mechanics for ensuring correct Muscle Recruitment during High Endurance Activities.

I’m sure you know how important good body mechanics are for whatever sport you do, whether you’re a runner, whether you’re a cyclist. There’s a good chance, though, that your body mechanics aren’t as efficient as they can be. Meaning, are you engaging the correct muscle groups while working on good form and good mechanics? And what I mean by that is, that you have different groups of muscles that are meant to do different things. So we have stabilizers, such as your rotator cuffs that are meant to keep the head of the humerus in that tiny socket of that glenoid fossa in your shoulder joint. And if your rotator cuffs aren’t doing the job what generally happens is a shoulder shrug. And that’s one of the things that can lead to shoulder impingement, rotator cuff tears, labral tears, and other shoulder dysfunction. And so the same is true for all of our stabilizers.

Our core muscle group, our deep abdominals, our deep back, our diaphragm, and our pelvic floor all work together to help stabilize our trunk. Our whole core should engage while we do posterior chain exercises, whether it’s a squat or whether we’re doing a hip hinge. You also want to think about what muscle groups are engaging first? Let’s investigate the hip hinge and look at every step that should happen. When you’re doing a hip hinge, is it your back that you feel, or is it truly your glutes? Is your core engaging? Are you feeling your pelvic floor engage? If you aren’t, there’s a good chance that you’re going to start to engage the wrong muscle groups. Meaning, you’re not going to be using your posterior chain hip extensors. Instead, you might be working your back extensors, and maybe even your quads. You might not be doing a true hip hinge. You might think you are, but instead you’re kind of leaning over and now engaging your hip flexors.

So, are you truly using the right body mechanics? Think about it. You can also film yourself, and see what you’re doing, and try to actually feel what muscles are turning on first. That will give you a clue if you’re doing the exercise correctly.

For context, I created a roadmap that helps people with their performance, by improving their joint mobility, the mobility and flexibility of the muscles, while also teaching them how to improve their muscle strength, their joint stability, and how to improve their muscle power and function. And, what I had talked about lies right here in the map.